Tips on Choosing the Best Letterhead Design
Oftentimes, the business people send and receive business letters every day for a number of different reasons. Such reasons include building relationship with clients and customers (by sending thank you letters, for example); introducing new products and/or services to customers (with the use of sales letters); selling incentive sales to customers (by offering rebates, coupons, and special deals); or acknowledging a complaint.
Whatever type of business letter that you are writing, it should be targeted to a specific person or group. You must make sure that it has a clear and concise purpose so that it will be easier for you to convince the reader to respond to your letter, no matter your business goals or objective are. Hence, it is safe to say that a business letter can be considered as an important tool in business communication.
Often times when writing a business letter, it is not only essential to master the skills of writing one, but it is also equally important that the stationery that you use for writing should come with a professional letterhead. It should be noted that a well-designed letterhead is an important factor that can influence and increase your chance that the reader is going to respond to your letter. That is why in this article, we will discuss essential details about the importance of using a letterhead and how to choose the appropriate design that is best describe the characteristics and core of your business.
What’s a Letterhead
According to an article that is published in Wikipedia, “a letterhead or letterheaded paper is a heading at the top of a sheet of letter paper (stationery). That heading usually consists of a name and an address and a company logo or corporate design, and sometimes a background pattern”. It can be generally a soft copy or printed paper.
Today, a lot of large companies choose to use a custom letterhead for the purpose of personalizing their business interaction with their valued clients and customers. And while interaction and communication are highly vital on every level of business, it is important to know that a personalized letterhead is also extremely beneficial for small companies and should not only be limited for large-scale company use.
Why Is It Significant in Business
A professional letterhead design is extremely important in business letter writing for a number good reasons. In this article, we will discuss why using a letterhead is highly significant in the business world.
- A professionally designed letterhead is a great tool that you can use in highlighting the image of your business or logo and set your company apart from your competitors in the market.
- It provides your company an aura of professionalism, which can help spark interesting projects, increase customer loyalty, as well as identify and boost up the brand of your business.
- It can be considered as one of the most effective sales and marketing tool and communication strategy when promoting a new product and/or services.
- It bears all the important information of your company that a reader needs to know, which is crucial for building rapport and strong relationship with the customers and clients.
- It reinforces brand authority, credibility, and legality.
- It can be used to convey the message of your brand.
- It can help you catch the attention of the reader and maintain flexibility across all printed products.
- When you have a good letterhead design, it can help make a good impression to the reader you want to do business with.
Types of Letterheads that are Often Used In Business Letters
It is no secret that businesses utilize different types of marketing and communication strategies every single day. And since we have already mentioned the important role played by letterheads in businesses, its design and essential details are the ones that the readers will know about the company that is writing them. Moreover, a lot of well-established companies use various types of letterheads depending on the purpose of their business letter. Get to know the different and most common types of letterheads by reading the information that is provided below:
Standard Letterhead
This type of letterhead uses a standard format, layout, and pattern. It is commonly used for service-oriented or administrative purposes and to target the general audience. Oftentimes, it only includes the company’s name, address, and logo.
Custom Letterhead
Compared to the other types of letterhead, the custom letterhead is more specific on its subject and comes from only one person. It is often used for interoffice communication purposes. The elements included in the custom letterhead are the name, address, and logo of the company, as well as the sender’s name and business contact details.
Specialized Letterhead
Although quite similar with the standard letterhead, this type includes a specific company department, such as marketing or legal. The specialized letterhead is used when the business letter specifically targets a group of individuals.
Executive Letterhead
This type of letterhead is quite similar with the custom letterhead only that is reserved for high ranking personnel. It is often used in termination letter to employment letters.
Key Elements that Make a Good Letterhead Design
Choosing the perfect letterhead design to represent your company can be quite tricky and challenging because it must be carefully planned and wisely designed. Its design can make or break your likelihood of making a great impression on the minds of your clients and customers and hold the authority of your company.
Simplicity
Choosing a letterhead with complex design does not do you any favors. Business experts often recommend choosing a letterhead with a fairly simple design because it helps the readers to easily read and understand all the information in the letterhead. Moreover, a simple yet professional letterhead design is not distracting to the eye.
High-Quality Image
We have already mentioned earlier that a letterhead often includes the logo of the company. However, the quality of your images may depend on the quality of printer that you will use to print the image. In order to achieve a superb image of your logo, you must invest in a high-quality printer.
Contact Details
When the recipients of the letter decide to do business with you, all they have to do is look at your letterhead and find the contact details of your company. That is why you always have to make sure that the contact detail, such as the company name and address, telephone number, website address, and email addresses provided in your letterhead are up-to-date and relevant. This is so recipients would not have any difficulty when trying to reach you. Depending on the layout, the contact details are often located along the top or bottom of the letterhead.
Proper Format
Since we all know that a business letter is a form of a formal document, you should make sure to follow the standard format. It is vital to choose the type of font that best represents your brand image. Times New Roman, Arial, Verdana, and Calibri are the most common typefaces that are used in letterheads.
Business Slogan or Tagline
Although it is optional, letterheads sometimes come with a company’s slogan or tagline. This is a great way to help you stand out and make a connection with your clients and customers. However, make sure that your slogan or catchphrase is short, otherwise, it can clutter up the document.
Quality of the Paper
The quality of the paper on which you will print the letterhead is another important factor to consider as it can generally affect the overall look and design of the stationery that your company will use when writing a business letter. If you want your letterhead to exude a professional appearance, then go for a thick, heavyweight, plain white or off-white paper.
Tips for Designing a Letterhead
- The first step you will need to take before you design a letterhead is to identify and decide what you want on it. Do you want to include a slogan or tagline? Are you planning to go with your company logo or just the name of your company?
- When designing a letterhead for your official company stationery, it is important to plan how to lay them out and know the crucial information to include in your letterhead. To make the planning process a lot easier, you can use a template to guide you throughout the design process.
- When you want to resize your logo, it is not recommended to click and drag its vertical and horizontal edges as it will only going to skew the image rather than resizing it. To avoid a headache, the best option is to find and download word letterhead templates where you can easily place your logo and your company address.
- The name of your company or business should be at least two points larger than the rest of the details included in your letterhead. On the other hand, the contact details, such as the telephone numbers, email address, and website address must be two points smaller compared to the font size of your company address.
- Make sure to use lively and vivid colors to create a good impressing. Using dull colors can create a negative impact on the attention of the reader.
Sample Letterhead Templates that You Can Download and Use
Now that you know all the important information that you need to know about choosing a design for your business letterhead, it is now time to take a closer look at the different professionally designed letterhead that you can use for your company stationery. Whatever design that you will choose, always keep in mind to include all the crucial information that you want your readers to know and make sure that the design is consistent with the identity of your brand.
Take some time to check out the following samples that are provided below:
Healthcare Letterhead Template
Advertising Company Letterhead
IT Company Letterhead Template
Theater Company Letterhead Template
Trucking Company Letterhead Template
Non Profit Letterhead Template
Security Company Letterhead Template
Free Logistics Services Letterhead Template
Corporate Letterhead Template Download
Form Free Letterhead Template
daytonastate.edu
Sample Example Format Corporate Letterheads Bundle
Sample Example Business Letterhead Bundle for Personal
Letterhead With Invoice Template in Word Format
Corporate Letterhead with Red Strips
Modern Letterhead Vector EPS Template
Professional Letterhead Vector EPS AI Illustrator Template Download
Corporate Letterhead Template for Government
sainthelenaaccess.com
Carrier Letterhead Template
careerservices.princeton.edu
Professional Letterhead Template
northeastern.edu
Final Thoughts
Incorporating a letterhead in your company’s stationery is not just for the sake of choosing a good letterhead design. It is crucial to take all the information that is stated above when choosing the best letterhead in order for you to stand out and uphold the image of your brand. If you want to be practical and save tons of money, you can choose from our letterhead design templates and customize them based on your personal needs. We guarantee you that our letterheads have been meticulously designed by experts.
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